Sunday, September 11, 2016

Poems By Justin Karcher

Justin Karcher is the author of Tailgating at the Gates of Hell from Ghost City Press, http://ghostcitypress.tumblr.com/gcp003. Recent works have been published in 3:AM Magazine, Plenitude Magazine, Foundlings, The Black Napkin, 63Channels and more. He is the editor-in-chief of Ghost City Review. He is the winner of the 2015 Just Buffalo Literary Center members' writing competition. He tweets @Justin_Karcher.I Like It When the Marlboro Man Calls Me DaddySo one night I’m scheduled to do a poetry readingOver at Gypsy Parlor and while walking thereI get a text that reads, “My periodIs so good. I know I am not pregnant.I feel confident now.” I let the disappointmentWash over me and flick my cigaretteDown a sewer grate in hopes that it will beMutated by radioactive, chemical toxic wasteInto the Marlboro Man and that he’ll climbOut of the underground and teach me howTo be a man, that he’ll take me by the handAnd show me the skeletons of fossil whalesUniting and dividing the country like train tracksBecause maybe the American Dream is deadAnd we must all come to grips with this tragedyThat the bodies left behind are big and weirdThat we should push them back out to seaAnd finish the grand experiment once and for all.My mind wanders a lot. I turn left onto GrantAnd see a group of Somali men smoking cigarettesAnd laughing in front of a converted funeral home.Despite all the difficulties, everyone is just tryingTo make it. I can’t help but think of those Somali men In Minneapolis who were shot while going to a mosqueFor Ramadan prayers. An armed white manConfronted them with insults about their robesLooking like dresses, pulled out a gunAnd began shooting. The story was all over the newsBack in June, pundits declaring that AmericaIs no longer safe, that there needs to be a change.When will everyone realize that AmericaIs composed of all the world’s unanswered prayersAnd it’s our responsibility to let them swim in the airMaking music out of silence, to let them convert deathInto something more livable, like LazarusGroaning in himself before climbing out of the darkness.In front of Gypsy Parlor, I flick my cigaretteAt a streetlight in hopes that the streetlight is flammableThat it’ll burst into flames, that the wave of lightSpreads through the city like a bubonic plague of passionThat it gobbles up all the insecurity guards denying entryTo the future we deserve, that maybe we can use the flamesTo light about 400 million ear candles so every AmericanCan remove the wax from their ears and understandThe power of effective communication until eachAnd every one of us can help pregnant pauses give birthTo the words we’re afraid to say. My optimism Wanders a lot. Inside Gypsy Parlor, I order two shots of whiskey to get me in the moodAs if my words are a spouse I’m not attracted to anymore.The reading goes well and afterwards I get drunkAnd talk about Hemingway and what it used to be likeAnd it’s all shit, the words coming out of my mouthBut it’s all I know, getting drunk like thisWhen my tongue becomes an ambulance Carrying dead bodies, a history of making outWith anyone standing near me, of confessing my sinsTo ATMs and they vomit out my empty penance Little slips of paper telling me how much I’ve fucked up.I’ve somewhat mastered the art of looking casualWhile glancing to see if the machine says approvedOr declined. And I want to be a dad? Me of all people?I talk a big game and my head’s always in the cloudsBut I have no idea how to distinguish the difference Between natural clouds and the ones that are toxic. Empty words contribute to air pollution. LanguageWanders a lot. Walking home from Gypsy ParlorI see that the Somali men have all gone to bedAnd I miss their laughter, the only thingThat was truly alive tonight. I arrive at my houseAnd the Marlboro Man is sitting on the steps And he’s wearing a dress and he looks beautifulIn a cancerous sort of way. He grabs me by the handAnd leads me inside. In my poorly furnished living roomHe removes his dress as if to seduce me. His bodyIs pregnant with tumors. I put his cowboy hat onAnd kiss every baby bump I can find. AfterwardsI tell him to get on his knees and call me daddy.I think I’m crying, because millions and millionsOf unanswered prayers are swirling all around meAnd I start to panic, because I’m not sure which one is mine But even if my words are somewhere out there, in that dust cloudI’m not sure I want to hear them. What I think I wantWanders a lot and I’m afraid I like it that way.

Gathering Together Dead Body Parts to Assemble the next President of the United StatesIt’s summer here so frostbitten crust punksAre touching themselves in the amber glowOf backyard bonfires on Buffalo’sLower west side. They’re trying to warm upTo the idea that Bernie Sanders will not beThe next President of the United States.I can hear them weeping and moaningAs I walk up Delavan thinking about my on-again Off-again girlfriend. Sometimes I dream That I’m Frankenstein and she’s my bandage-wrapped brideAnd we’re both composed of dead body partsFrom all the people who’ve screwed us over.I over-romanticize everything, but it’s so importantTo be connected to something larger than yourself.Even in this sea of sadness, choose your battles wiselyAnd hang on tight. Tonight, I will make love to my on-againOff-again girlfriend on a bed of Bernie SandersFor President yard signs and afterwards, we’ll dreamOf better things. It’ll be like necrophiliaAnd when we wake up, there’ll be snowOn the ground and all this will be lost.A Beach Party for Animals That Have Gone ExtinctShe tried to stab me with a vibratorI was in the process of moving outI got the hell out of thereBut before leaving I took one of her bottlesOf Fireball Cinnamon WhiskyI don’t even like FireballBut I couldn’t resist the poetry of the momentA relationship was over and done withExtinct, as if it was hit by the asteroidThat killed the dinosaursIn other words, the dinosaurs drank too much fireI was hoping the whisky would do the same to meI did really love herSo I drank the entire bottleAnd wandered around the cityI must’ve blacked outBecause when I came toI was on a pretty beach somewhereWhich was strangeBecause there are no pretty beachesWhere I come fromI was at a beach party for animals that have gone extinctThere were Neanderthal DJsSpinning fossil recordsOn a couple of x-ray turntablesI was grinding up against a wooly mammothAnd tickling its ivory keysIt was the hottest thing I’ve ever doneThe music of extinction Gets the dance floor movingI got into a fight with a saber-toothed tigerAnd wonI pulled out its teethWith rusted pliers and cried afterwardsThe big angry cat was so beautifulWhen the sun started to come upA bunch of dodo birds took flightAnd they were holding tiny vibratorsIn their weird-looking beaks I watched them fly over the waterWhere they dropped the vibratorsLike they were sad sex bombsIt was the most amazing thingI’ve ever seen, not to mentionThat dodo birds lost the ability to flyWhile they were still aliveSo I guess that means It takes a little bit of extinctionFor us to regain the best parts of ourselvesIt filled me with optimism Watching those dumb birds flyWatching those vibrators drownIn the dirty water So I guess that meansWe shouldn’t focus so muchOn pleasuring ourselvesBecause if we do We’ll just end up drowning aloneThat maybe we should focusOn pleasuring the dead thingsThat are all around usThat maybe we should make senseOf extinction and hope for the best When the sun did finally come upI was walking to a caféSo I could eat an overpriced bagelAnd drink lukewarm coffeeAnd hopefully plan for the rest of my life

We're Living in Closets Full of Snow“It’s like drilling for oil,” Sam tells meHe’s shoveling snow And still wearing those therapy pajamasWith the bottom part of the pants cutIt’s bitter cold out hereLike something out of Game of ThronesBut Sam likes getting frostbiteSays it makes him feel aliveThat the freezing of body tissuesReminds him that he still has a bodyAnd that’s all you can really ask for these daysThe backyard is full of glow-in-the-dark junkA lawn sprinkler douses us in bare-knuckled bourbonAnd bruises my spirit but not Sam’sHe has shoveled three times so far tonightConvinced that there are Vitamin D supplements Buried under the snowhe tells me that happinessFlashes suddenly and is gone like how when you fall asleepIn the Rust Belt and there’s no snow but then you wake upAnd see that some blizzard painted the ground with its tearsWhile you were dreaming and Sam dreams a lotLike he’s Edgar Cayce or something, a lot of times he dreamsOf this small town graveyard full of television sets And they’re all tuned in to a live coverageOf dead men’s stag parties he tells me that testosteroneIs leaving this land but that might be a good thingHe yells at me for falling in love with the same kind of girlThe kind that feels the urge to jump off a bridge all the timeThe kind that will probably get postpartum depressionI tell him he’s being sexist and Sam tells me I’m probably rightSometimes Sam shovels even when there isn’t any snowOne day I’ll cut bathtubs out of his eyes and soak in his speakeasies Of sadnessand together we’ll hold hands and jump off a bridgeWe might be fuck-ups but at least we’re not douchebagsAnd that’s pretty important, to still give a shitTo still think there’s happiness out there somewhere Your Melancholy Is Straight out of an Edith Piaf SongIn Buffalo the love is cheapA pretty girl wondering what to doWith the dizzinessThere’s only so much whiskey I can drinkIn hopes that things will get interestingOr real to the touchWhen you black outYour brain loses its ability to form memoriesBut your heart gains the ability to spit passionIn all directionsLike a cobra projecting venom from its fangsWhen defending itselfI’ll take that trade off every timeAnd yet there are nights I want to rememberNights I want to kiss you in the glow Of the Buffalo State HospitalWhere the phantoms of psychosis are held downBy the giants of memoryWhere birds of feelingsAre always crashing into invisible windowsAnd their little bodies Hindenburg out of the skyUntil the ground is littered with what appears to beDry, dead leavesSometimes things fall apartSo that better things can fall togetherSometimes it’s the simplest fucking thingThat makes me happyWatching you dance in the rainWhile I conjure the ghost of Edith PiafWith a smartphone Ouija board